


Neopet Symmetary

by pavvlove



Category: Fall Out Boy
Genre: Alternate Timelines, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Gen, Mentions of Death, Multi, Pete's like a mutated vampire, mentions of drug and alcohol use
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-17
Updated: 2021-02-17
Packaged: 2021-03-12 04:47:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29504334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pavvlove/pseuds/pavvlove
Summary: A product of the year 2000 and a struggling college student, Joe Trohman's every day consists of a lot of crying, drinking, and McDonald's. But after a series of weird shit starts happening to him, he learns that maybe the sophomore slump isn't his biggest problem right now.
Relationships: Andy Hurley/Joe Trohman, Andy Hurley/Original Female Character(s), Joe Trohman/Pete Wentz, Patrick Stump/Original Female Character(s), Patrick Stump/Pete Wentz, Pete Wentz/Original Male Character(s)
Kudos: 5





	Neopet Symmetary

**Author's Note:**

> As a college kid myself, and a total sucker for the supernatural, this fic only felt right. Set current day. Joe, Andy, Pete and Patrick are their 2004 counterparts.
> 
> Pete is a vampire. I think I said that. Whatever.

Joe stares at the cadaver laid out in front of him, a scalpel in his gloved hand. The deceased corpse of a jaundiced, seventy-something year old man figuratively stares right back at him (he can’t, really, his eyes are frozen shut.), as if he's about to sit up and grab Joe by the throat. It's fascinating. It sort of makes him nauseous. But he's eager to dig in- likely more so than the rest of his class. 

Nursing school. North Park University. Sophomore year. Joe doesn't expect to pass.

He isn't even sure that this is what he wants to do, but he felt like he was running out of time, an impending sense of danger that maybe he was going to reach the end of his life, or the world would come crashing down and end in a big fiery pit thanks to giant robots with lazer eyes. It felt as if the rug was being pulled out from underneath his feet. He ignores the fact that he’s only nineteen. In his defense, he’s always felt like this. 

But Joe couldn't pass up the chance of looking at real life human guts. He's also far too depressed and unrelatedly lazy to think about the financial consequences he'll have to face later for taking out as many loans as he’s had to.

His time at college has really just been a haze of crying a lot more than ever in his life, drinking even more, and of course, a ridiculous amount of McDonalds that he’s almost certain he’s well past that ‘freshman fifteen’. He assumes this is what they call the sophomore slump.

“Are you cutting?” whispers Remy Cortez, Joe’s current lab partner; a short girl with chunky blonde highlights in her dark hair who always shows up in some obscure band’s t-shirt.

“Like, this dead body or my wrist?” he whispers back. Remy quietly smirks to herself- though Joe is rarely in class, when he is, she’s probably one of his favorite classmates as they’re always cracking dark humor at each other and purposely blow off lectures to send rude anonymous asks to popular Tumblr blogs. “Yeah. I am.” the professor clears her throat, sending all six pairs of eyes in the room her way.

“If you have discussed amongst yourselves who will be doing what, you can now begin to cut down the sternum of your cadaver, starting at the notch and ending at the xiphoid process” the professor says, reading off of a piece of paper in her hand.. “If you need help, you may refer to the textbooks on the left of each of the cadavers.” Joe doesn’t exactly remember her name, so he just refers to her as ‘miss’ or ‘ma’am’ if necessary. Usually not at all. 

He starts to feel around for the notch, Remy’s equally curious green eyes in tow. He’s so focused on finding the perfect spot to place the edge of the blade onto that he doesn’t realize his hands shaking the way that they are. It has to be perfectly in the middle. He won’t accept anything else. Remy begins to grow impatient, and he can feel it- he understands. But this has to be totally straight or else he’ll never stop thinking about it.

He stops the progression of the scalpel’s movement towards the body as the lights in the lab turn off unexpectedly, jarring everyone in the room. Luckily, no one else has started their cut either, and nobody has shown indication of being injured just yet. The emergency generator never kicks on, as they expected it would, and it’s a solid minute before the lights come back on, flickering as the make the transition.

“Everyone alright?” the professor asks, looking around at her students, who all nod or reply in agreement. For some reason, she stops and stares at Joe, and he’s not sure why. He didn’t get hurt or anything.

But now Remy’s staring at him too- as is the whole class. 

“Joe…” Remy says, “What happened to you?” she asks, eyes wide open. “Your nose is, like, pouring blood.” come to think of it, he does feel something on his upper lip, and suddenly it tastes metallic- but he chalked that up to the smell of the formaldehyde being so strong that you can literally taste it.

But no, it’s blood. It’s literally pouring, dripping down his chin like an endless supply.. And the thing is...

“.....This isn’t the first time that this has happened.” he states, 

/ 

That was about an hour ago. Joe has been sitting in the campus nurse’s office with a blood pressure cuff around his arm for a while as they try to figure out what possibly could have caused that much blood to come out of his nose. It only stopped a few minutes ago. But for as long as he was bleeding, he feels totally fine. 

“I don’t understand how someone can lose that much blood without passing out or at the very least feeling faint.” the nurse says, resetting the blood pressure machine. He seems to be treating Joe like some sort of science experiment, and quite frankly he’s bored of it.

“Can I leave yet?” he asks, annoyed. “Got things to do, places to be.” the nurse seems to ignore him, and walks off to go talk to his coworker. Joe longingly gazes at the doorway before looking back over at the nurse.

Fuck it.

He takes the blood pressure cuff off and hops down from the metal table, running out the door to catch up with Remy who’s walking down the hallway. 

“Hey, what’s up?” she asks when she notices him coming towards her, “You good?” Joe flashes her two thumbs up as they walk down the hallway together.

“Totally fine. Sorry I freaked you out with my weird nose-blood.” he says, “How was the rest of lab? Did you guys get to see some guts?” he asks, intrigued. Remy nods and tucks a piece of hair behind her right ear.

“Saw some guts alright.” she replies, “Dude, did you know that the fat starts to melt when the body warms up and makes it all slippery and shit? It got hard to hold the scalpel. The professor took your place, but she still made me do the cutting.” she laughs. “It was awful.”

“Sick! No fucking way!” Joe is sort of miffed that he missed it. Maybe next time. He has this class for a whole semester, anyway. He jumps up at a light fixture and touches the side, causing his classmate to smirk and roll her eyes.

“Wanna come to my dorm after Chem tomorrow night and play Smash Bros?” Remy then asks, “I dug up our old Wii on my last trip back home. Can’t believe that thing still works.” yeah, honestly. Joe had totally forgotten that Wiis were even a thing. That reminds him that he needs to charge his Switch when he gets back to his own dorm. 

“Hell yeah. I used to obliterate in some Smash Bros, dude..” he runs towards the exit door and leans on it, walking backward as he opens and gesturing for Remy to walk out.

“Alright, man, see you tomorrow. I have a virtual date with my girl in a couple of hours.” Remy walks out onto the wet sidewalk of the sciences building and looks towards the dorms, “We’re playing IMVU together.. Also, you better use my fucking referal code before it expires.”

“I will, I promise.” Joe says, stepping forward and letting the door close, “See ya, Remy.” 

“Bye!” she waves.

/

“Home.” Andy announces, walking in the front door of his and Joe’s student apartment. He throws his backpack on the floor and heads over towards Joe, who’s laying across the bottom bunk, half asleep before he hears Andy come in. Joe rolls over and opens his arms for Andy to come over into, which he eventually does. 

“How was your day?” Joe asks, pulling Andy into his embrace. Andy collapses on top of him.

“Y’know. Another boring lecture, another pile of homework..” he groans, rolling off of Joe and laying on his side. “College shit. I got an acorn thrown at me by one of those crackhead squirrels today.” Joe laughs, realizing he still has the bruise from last Wednesday when the same thing had happened to him. “I did drink this really good coconut milk latte from the coffee shop today, though. The barista was nice. I don’t remember her name.” 

“Mm, yea, the coffee fucks. They always spell my name wrong though.” Joe says, “Got another nosebleed today. Like, right in the middle of cadaver labs.” Andy furrows his brows.

“Another?” he sits up, “Dude, that’s your second nosebleed this week alone.. But hey, you actually made it to a class today.”

"Right.” Joe sits up with with him, "So, I’ve been having these nightmares too, like super realistic. Maybe they’re prophecies or something. Like, in this one dream, it was the end of the world, and-”

“The robots again?” Andy asks, “Seriously?” Joe grins nervously. 

“I’ve already told you?” he asks. Andy nods.

“Three times. You wanna know what I think?” he adjusts his glasses, “I think that you drinking all the time combined with your… I don’t know, anxiety? Craziness? ...Is not doing you any favors.” Joe sighs and falls on his back. 

“Dude! I get it! But I’m serious. I think maybe this time-” 

“Maybe you should stop watching old sci-fi horror movies before bed…” Andy continues, much to Joe’s annoyance.

“You’re boring. I should talk to Patrick more.” Joe huffs, reaching over between the window and his bed to pull out a bottle of fireball. Andy gets up.

“Patrick is probably going to tell you the same thing, although meaner. You know this.” he crosses his arms, “Did you eat my spinach dip?” he asks, heading towards the mini-fridge.

“No.” Joe replies, “I thought about it, but didn’t. You’re totally welcome.” he unscrews the cap of the bottle and takes a swig. 

“Wow. Thanks. You’re the best.” Andy laughs, opening said minifridge.


End file.
